Lockheed Martin to lay off 166 workers at Electronics Park in Salina

Lauren Long / The Post-StandardLockheed Martin is laying off 166 workers today at its plant in Salina. The Electronics Park campus is seen here today facing the New York State Thruway.

UPDATE 3:45 p.m.

Washington -- Lockheed Martin confirmed this afternoon that its Mission Systems & Sensors Division will lay off 740 employees, including 166 in Syracuse. Of the total layoffs. 308 are U.S.-based employees, the company said.

“Given the budget pressures facing our customers, Lockheed Martin is examining every aspect of our business to ensure we are as efficient and cost effective as possible in meeting their needs,” Dale P. Bennett, president of Lockheed Martin Mission Systems & Sensors business, said in a statement. "Reducing our workforce is a difficult but necessary decision to position our business for future growth and ensure we remain competitive."

Lockheed spokesman Keith Little in Washington, D.C., said employees affected by the layoff will be offered severance benefits, continued use of an employee assistance program for their families and outplacement services to assist with job and career transitions.

From earlier today

Washington -- Lockheed Martin Corp. will issue layoff notices today to 166 employees at its Electronics Park plant in Salina, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.

The layoffs are part of a larger cutback nationwide across Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Sensors Division, the sources said. The cutbacks are expected to be announced later today.

Lockheed Martin officials would not confirm the layoffs, but two sources told The Post-Standard the cutbacks include 72 voluntary and 94 involuntary layoffs at the Salina plant. More than 2,200 people work at Lockheed's sprawling Electronics Park campus.

Lockheed Martin announced in April that it intended to lay off about 3.5 percent, or about 500, of its 14,000 employees nationwide who work in the Mission Systems and Sensors division. The division includes the Salina research and development operation.

A company spokesman said in April that it would seek voluntary layoffs before making any involuntary layoffs.

Lockheed is the seventh-largest employer in Central New York, according to a January 2012 ranking by CenterState CEO, a regional economic development group. Kevin Schwab, CenterState's vice president of communications, said the layoffs are hitting one of the bright spots of the Central New York economy, which may diminish the eventual impact.

"Layoffs are never good news, and this is certainly no exception," Schwab said. But he said the highly-skilled workers at Lockheed Martin are better equipped to find work at other local defense companies in the radar and sensor industry.

"This area really is a global leader when it comes to radar and sensor systems," Schwab said. "There are several companies that need similar job skills. So the overall impact (of the layoffs) may be mitigated by that. These skills are in high demand."

Lockheed's Salina division has performed well in recent years, and in March landed a contract that could be worth $881 million over the next three years. The U.S. Army announced it would buy up to 51 Firefinder radar units, along with training and testing. The radars, formerly known as the EQ 36, detect and track incoming rocket, mortar and artillery fire.

The sources familiar with Lockheed's plans said today's layoffs are unrelated to the uncertainty surrounding MEADS, a missile defense system that is one of its largest projects in Salina.

The local plant makes the surveillance radar for the Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS. It is the single largest contract in the history of the Salina plant and has supported up to 300 jobs during its development.

Lockheed Martin demonstrates new Army radarLockheed Martin demonstrated its new EQ-36 radar in October 2011 at the Association of the United States Army convention in Washington, D.C. Lockheed's Salina plant won a competitive contract to put the radars (now known as TPQ-53) into full production. (Video by Mark Weiner/The Post-Standard)

Earlier this year, three congressional committees voted to cut off the project's final year of funding. Opponents cite years of delays and a projected $19 billion cost to build and deploy MEADS as a replacement for the Army's aging Patriot missile defenses.

Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle and Defense Secretary Leon PanettaÂ are among those who sent letters in the past two weeks to U.S. Senate appropriators, asking the panel to includer $400.9 million in the fiscal 2013 budget for MEADS. The committee is the last hope for those looking to restore funding.

Buerkle and Pentagon officials told the committee’s leaders that it’s important to finish the development phase of the project, so its technology can be “harvested” for other defense programs.

In a June 29 letter to the committee, Buerkle suggested any effort by the United States to back out of the project would hurt the U.S. relationship with its European partners on MEADS, Italy and Germany.

The White House has also warned that President Barack ObamaÂ will veto any fiscal 2013 defense spending bills that do not pay for the final year of the MEADS project.

In addition to the layoffs announced today, Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Robert Stevens has warned of the possibility of future layoffs among the company's 123,000 employees if Congress fails to act by October to avert $500 billion in automatic defense spending reductions over the next decade.

The cutbacks would be part of $1.2 trillion in spending reductions set to automatically begin Jan. 2 as part of a congressional deal to reduce the national debt. Congress has the option to come up with a different plan.